Actual Halloween at Gravity Falls
by ToothPasteCanyon
Summary: The Mystery Twins visit Gravity Falls for Halloween. Predictably, it doesn't turn out the way they expect it to. For the Writers Anonymous Halloween Challenge.


"Actual Halloween at Gravity Falls." Mabel said as she slipped some fangs over her braces and tightened the black cape around her shoulders. "I'm so excited! How different do you think it's gonna be from Summerween, Dipper?"

"Besides the Summerween Trickster not chasing us around and trying to kill us? My guess is not that much."

"And the pumpkins instead of watermelons."

"Oh yeah, and the pumpkins." Dipper fixed some brown ears on his head. "Werewolf costume, done! How do I look, Mabel?"

"Ooh, scary! Rawr!" She snorted. "Actually, it looks like that wolf costume Grunkle Stan used to make you wear for tours around the Shack."

"It does? Oh my gosh, it does." Dipper slapped his head. "I can't wear this. Mabel, is it too late to make another costume?"

"It's never too late!" Mabel threw a bedsheet at him. "Be a ghost!"

"Actual Halloween at Gravity Falls." Mabel said as she slipped some fangs over her braces and tightened the black cape around her shoulders. "I'm so excited! How different do you think it's gonna be from Summerween, Dipper?"

"Besides the Summerween Trickster not chasing us around and trying to kill us? My guess is not that much."

"And the pumpkins instead of watermelons."

"Oh yeah, and the pumpkins." Dipper fixed some brown ears on his head. "Werewolf costume, done! How do I look, Mabel?"

"Ooh, scary! Rawr!" She snorted. "Actually, it looks like that wolf costume Grunkle Stan used to make you wear for tours around the Shack."

"It does? Oh my gosh, it does." Dipper slapped his head. "I can't wear this. Mabel, is it too late to make another costume?"

"It's never too late!" Mabel threw a bedsheet at him. "Be a ghost!"

"It's pink."

"Ghosts can be pink! Now let's go, we gotta show Grunkle Stan and Soos!"

"Well…! Nevermind," Dipper followed his sister out of the door. "Coming, Mabel!"

The two skipped downstairs to see Stan and Soos sitting in the living room. The former was dressed up in a grey suit and tie almost identical to his usual clothing, the latter toting the attire of a certain video game character Dipper knew very well.

"You're dressing up as Rumble McSkirmish, Soos?" Dipper stuck his thumbs up. "Nice."

Soos tightened the red sash around his forehead. "Thanks, dawg. And you're a pink ghost?"

"Yes, yes I am."

"Grunkle Stan," Mabel put her hands on her hips. "Why aren't you dressing up? Where's the Halloween spirit?"

"What? I am dressed up; I'm a lawyer!" Stan stared at the three incredulously before turning back to the TV with a grumble. "You knuckleheads just wait until you're dodging taxes, and you'll see how scary those suckers are."

"Uh, okay," Dipper clapped his hands together. "Mabel, Soos, you ready for some trick or treating?"

"I can't wait, bro bro!"

"You bet I am, dude! This is gonna be even better than Summerween, now that the threat of getting eaten alive has lifted."

Stan sat up. "What? Actually, I don't even wanna know." He waved to the three as they made for the front door. "You kids have fun, stay safe, call me if you need a getaway vehicle and all that. I'm gonna be scaring the socks off of anybody who knocks on the Mystery Shack!"

Mabel blinked. "As a law-"

"Yes, sweetie, as a lawyer." Stan's grin stretched uncomfortably wide. "You'll see."

* * *

They were knocking on the last house in the row. As the door opened, Dipper and Mabel did a little dance in their costumes, made considerably harder by the pink bedsheet hanging around one of them.

"Trick or- aah!" Dipper slipped up on the sheet and smacked his face on the pavement. "That's it. I'm taking this thing off."

The woman at the door looked on in confusion. "I don't get it. Is he a pink ghost or a werewolf?"

"He's a pink ghost!"

"Werewolf, Mabel. I'm a werewolf now."

"Two costumes at once? Wow, that sounds so clever! I'm gonna give you extra candy for that!"

The twins abruptly stopped arguing and held out their bags.

"Man," Dipper said as he folded the bedsheet over his arm. "This has been a great night. I don't think I can hold much more candy!"

Soos nodded. "My bag feels heavier than a golf cart! In fact… whew… Gimme a second dudes, I'm gonna put it down for a minute…"

"Hey, Dipper, look!" Mabel pointed at an iron gate standing closed by the side of the road. "It's Old Man McGucket's place! I bet he goes nuts for Halloween."

Dipper made a face. "He still lives in the Northwest Mansion?"

"Yeah! He's got so many pretty rooms to live in!" She looked at her brother. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"For one, dozens of townspeople died making it, so it's haunted. Don't you remember that ghost that almost killed us last time?" Dipper crossed his arms. "Besides, Pacifica's dad used to live there. What was his name? Oh yeah, Preston."

"But he doesn't anymore!" Mabel ran up to the gate and managed to pull it open a crack. The two slipped in, standing at the edge of a gravel driveway with dark ditches on either side, looking around at the unkempt garden casting long moonlit shadows. It looked abandoned; the only sign of anybody living there was a single brightened room in the mansion.

Mabel grinned at her brother, who was almost unable to make out her face in the darkness. "Race you to the front-"

"Dudes, wait!" The twins turned to see Soos behind them, panting heavily. The man set his candy down on the side of the driveway and began to speak. "Old Man McGucket doesn't live here anymore."

"Huh?"

"Dude said he didn't like all the space, so he went down to live with his son at the fishing lake." Soos shrugged. "Seems fair, this place always gives me the creeps."

Dipper frowned. "But if he doesn't live here… why is the light on?"

The three stopped, and stared at the light in the mansion for a long moment. Eventually Mabel spoke up. "Let's go somewhere else, guys."

"That is an A plus idea, hambone." Soos reached for his bag, but saw it was gone. "Hey, my candy rolled down that ditch. Gimme a second dudes, I'm gonna get it."

Dipper glanced back at the mansion. "Okay, just hurry. I really don't want a run in with some ghost or zombie or whatever."

"Maybe it's a friendly ghost?" Mabel suggested.

"No, Mabel, there's no such thing as a friendly ghost."

"What about Casper the Friendly Ghost? That's his middle name!"

"Caspar's not real, Ma-"

" _Aaaagh_!" A cry from the bottom of the ditch brought the twins running.

"Soos! What happened?" Dipper could barely make out his friend in the moonlight; he was sitting down next to a bag of candy, seemingly unharmed.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, dudes." Soos put both hands on his right leg. "Something just wrapped around my ankle really fast, it scared me! Now it, heh, now it won't come off."

"What?" Mabel frowned as he caught sight of a piece of wire wrapped around the man's leg. "Is that a trap? Why would somebody do that?"

"I don't want to find out." Dipper tried pulling the wire off Soos, but it held firm. "Ugh, this isn't breaking! Does anybody have scissors or something like that?"

"I have plastic vampire teeth!"

"That's not gonna work." He followed the wire to a metal stake sunk deep into the ground; it wouldn't so much as budge when he tried to pull it. "Great. Sorry Soos, you're stuck."

Soos stroked his chin. "Hmm… maybe I could try gnawing my leg off. That's what animals do when they're caught, right?" He looked at the twins' horrified expressions. "Too much? Okay, that can be Plan B."

"Ohh… what are we gonna do, Dipper?" Mabel snapped her fingers. "We could call Grunkle Stan! He can get us out!"

"Good idea, Mabel." Dipper fished out his phone and handed it to his sister. "Don't worry, Soos. We'll stay with you until Stan gets here."

"Thanks, guys. You two are the best." Soos grinned. "Hey, you dudes want to eat some candy while we're stuck here?"

Mabel took a fistful of sweets as the phone rang. "Grunkle Stan! We need a ride, Soos got stuck at McGucket's mansion… yeah, he got stuck. There was this super weird trap he got caught on…"

Dipper kept fiddling with the wire around Soos' leg, to no avail. "You know, this is really strange. I wonder who set it up?"

"Maybe the same guy who's in the mansion?"

He shuddered, looking back to the house. "That's a super creepy thought. That's… That's…"

"Dude-?" Dipper slapped a hand around Soos's mouth, and then Mabel's. Once the two were quiet, he pointed with a shaky finger at the mansion.

The light in the house had been turned off, leaving it dark and empty. The three turned to face each other, eyes wide with fear.

"Stan's coming in five minutes," Mabel whispered, pulling her sweater tightly around her body. "What do we do?"

"Keep very quiet." Dipper pressed a finger to his mouth for emphasis. The three leaned in closer to each other, eyes scanning the environment for any sign of danger. Not that it helped much; it was too dark to see anything.

One long moment passed in heavy silence, then… _crunch_. The three froze, and listened hard.

Feet on gravel, a steady pace. Getting louder.

Dipper dared sneak a peek from above the ditch, where he saw a dark hooded figure coming their way, holding a lantern. His breath caught in his throat and he turned back to his friends.

"I think it's a ghost," he whispered. "I memorised an incantation to repel these guys, give me a second."

Closing his eyes to remember the words, Dipper recited something under his breath. The wind picked up all of a sudden, causing the trees to rustle…

And the figure continued to approach unhindered, boots grinding the gravel.

"Did it work, Dipper?"

His eyes widened. "No, it didn't. Maybe it's just a very strong ghost-" Mabel and Soos' gasps of horror made him quickly add, "Or a zombie, it could be a zombie. We can take a zombie, right?"

Soos frowned. "Can zombies set traps? I don't remember that happening in horror movies."

"Shhh…" Dipper silently scooted back to where his friends were sitting, gripping both of their hands. They sat perfectly still like rabbits in a hole, listening to that dreadful crunch, crunch, crunch as the figure got louder and louder, closer and closer and closer.

A dark hood came into view from the top of the ditch, its face cast in darkness by the angle of the lantern. It was carrying a long object over one shoulder, a stick? Then the figure shifted it a little, and the silvery shine of the head revealed it to be an axe.

The three shrank back in terror, uttering gasps of surprise. After a moment Dipper cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak. "H-hello? Whoever you are, we don't mean any harm."

The figure lifted the axe off its shoulders and set the lantern down, then cleared its throat and began to speak in a deep voice. "You're trespassing on my property."

"Your property? But this is McGucket's-" Mabel was quickly hushed by Dipper.

"Uh, yeah!" Dipper nodded vigorously. "Your property, man. We were just leaving, but my friend here got stuck in this trap."

Soos raised his hand. "That's me, heh."

"A snare trap." The figure said. "I used to use it all the time when I went out hunting: I'm glad to know it works on nosy humans as well."

Dippe's eyes widened. "Wait, I know you! Preston Northwest?"

The figure pulled down the hood, revealing a graying man with a moustache and a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Yes. You're a clever boy, aren't you Dipper Pines?"

Mabel raised an eyebrow."Wait, what are you doing here? I thought you got super poor and had to sell the mansion!"

The fake smile on Preston's face instantly disappeared, and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the axe. "This mansion has always, and will always, belong to the Northwests. I don't care if I have to squat here and dodge taxes for the rest of my life; this is my land, and I will _not_ be evicted!"

"Whoa!" Soos raised his hands. "We didn't come here to evict you, dude. Just let us go!"

"But I can't do that, can I?" Preston growled. "You're going to tell the police, and that hillbilly McGucket, and then they'll come to take my rightful mansion away from me! No, there's only one man coming out of this alive, and it's me, the Northwest!"

Dipper tensed and gripped the bedsheet he was holding in his hand. Mabel picked up her Halloween bag. Preston raised his axe up above his head, black robes billowing in the whistling wind.

Before he could bring it down, Dipper threw the pink bedsheet over him. Mabel jumped up and swung her bag up and onto Preston's head, her body hanging off the front of his frame and sending him tumbling down the ditch with the axe.

"Hah!" Mabel grinned as she landed on top. "Nobody messes with the Mystery Twins- ow, Soos!"

"Sorry dude, I was trying to throw candy at him. Kinda hard to aim, y'know?"

Before Mabel could reply, Preston reached up and clamped his hands down on her shoulders, squeezing tight enough to make her yelp with pain.

"Mabel!" Dipper picked up the axe, aimed it at the man, hesitated and then kicked him in the back of the knee. Preston folded down and dropped his sister, whipping his head around to glare at the culprit.

Dipper held the axe out to one side. "Just let us go, man! It's Halloween; we don't want to fight you! We won't even tell anyone, promise!"

Preston's eyes narrowed. "You're lying to me, boy."

"Well, it was worth a shot." He was caught off guard as Preston surged forwards and grabbed the handle of the weapon. "Hey!"

" _Give me that axe_!" Preston pulled Dipper forwards, but Mabel wrapped her hands around her brother's waist and dug her heels into the ground. Behind them Soos took her knees, anchoring them firmly in place.

Preston's eyes narrowed and he twisted the axe out of Dipper's hands, bending his wrist the wrong way as he did so. Dipper cringed at the sharp pain and recoiled, staring up at Preston Northwest as he brandished the axe.

"Dudes, run!" Soos said to the twins. "Don't worry about me, I'll find another way out!"

"What? No, that's just silly!" Mabel frowned. "Dipper's got a plan, right?"

Dipper didn't reply. He was too busy watching Preston once again raise the axe above his head.

"No more games, children." He breathed heavily, eyes burning with a murderous passion. "End of the line, you-"

There was a solid _thunk_ , and Preston suddenly crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Behind him was none other than Grunkle Stan, still in his grey suit and tie, holding a baseball bat tightly with both hands. "Kids! Are you alright?"

"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel and Dipper tackled him with a hug. "Oh my gosh, you came just in time!"

Soos stood up. "Mr Pines! I'd go and hug you too, but I'm kind of stuck."

"We'll get you out of there, Soos." Stan picked up the axe and looked over at Preston. "Yeesh, isn't that the rich guy who used to live here?" He rolled his eyes as the man groaned. "No sympathy. Next time, don't mess with my grandkids."

As they spoke Preston jolted and stumbled to his feet, holding his head. His wild and unfocussed eyes settled on Stan's grey suit and tie, and he stabbed at it with a trembling finger. "I-it's a lawyer! You can't make me leave! You can't!"

Stan held up his arms. "Hey, knock it off, you little-"

"You can't make me!" Preston darted up the hill, out of sight.

"You'd better run!" Stan turned to the twins and Soos. "Kids, how's about we get some payback?"

Dipper shook his head. "Let's just go home, Grunkle Stan. I don't really want to spend all night chasing this guy around the mansion."

"Oh, fiddlesticks! I got caught in another of my own snare traps!" A pause. "You'll still never take me!"

Mabel shrugged. "Maybe we can call the police and let them deal with it?"

"Fair enough. Lemme just get Soos out of that trap." Stan retrieved a pair of wire clippers from his pocket and knelt down in front of the man. "This is good wire. I hope he minds that I'm gonna steal it."

Soos grinned at Stan as he cut the wire. "That was so cool how you rescued us, Mr Pines!"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Stan waved his hand, standing up. "Now everyone in the car. I think I've had enough excitement for today; let's go home, watch cheap horror movies and laugh at how bad they are until we fall asleep."

"Agreed!"

* * *

 **Last edited 29/10/16**


End file.
